The old guard in Dinteloord can’t stop talking about it: cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema, their former fellow villager, has won an Oscar in America. He received this for his camera work for the film Oppenheimer, the film hit of 2023. Van Hoytema grew up in the Brabant village, but moved abroad at a young age. His old neighbors are proud that he has become one of the best cameramen in the world. “Very special, but super fun,” says Elly de Bruijn.
Elly is now 59, but lived next to the Van Hoytema family in her youth. “I am very proud of my boy next door,” she says. In 1974 the family moved next to her parents’ house. They moved from Sweden to Dinteloord. Together with Jannie van Dam, her neighbor at the time, Elly looked after Hoyte van Hoytema and his older brother.
“Hoyte was two or three years old at the time,” says Elly. “Jannie and I were already friends. And then two of those little ones come to live next to you, which was nice.” According to the two ladies, it was a warm family. “Everything was allowed and everything was possible,” says Jannie. “You were always welcome for a cup of tea and you could always join us for dinner. It was always very pleasant.”
“A friend of mine always said to Hoyte, you will be famous.”
She shows a photo of them celebrating carnival together with Hoyte as a child. “This little Indian is Hoyte,” she points out. “Behind him is his brother Joris and we are next to him.” Elly has always continued to follow her old neighbor. “First on Hyves, then on Facebook. I still recognize him out of thousands,” she says.
The two did not expect that Van Hoytema would become so big more than forty years later. “We were only ten at the time, so we didn’t think about that,” says Jannie. “But a friend of mine later started doing housework there and she always said to Hoyte: ‘You will be famous.’ That was her intuition or something.”
“It is special that it is now so close.”
Joke Ruijzing, an old friend of Van Hoytema’s mother, also saw in the past that there was talent in the young Hoyte. “He was a very creative boy,” she says. “He only had to see a musical instrument and he could play it. And afterwards he was in a band.”
She is therefore not surprised that he has now won an Oscar. “It took a while, because things were a bit disappointing.” Joke is referring to the beginning of his film career. Van Hoytema was rejected twice from the film academy in Amsterdam. And even after his film training in Poland, he was not able to get a job straight away. He eventually moved to Sweden, where the filmmakers believed in him. “It was just a matter of him doing something big,” says Joke. “Luckily he was discovered.”
The cameraman accepted the award on Sunday night in Los Angeles. “I already said to Elly: ‘We have to go to Los Angeles’,” laughs Jannie. She watched the news repeat every hour on Monday morning. “It’s still nice to see an acquaintance from the past on TV who has won an Oscar. Normally they are people you don’t know, but the fact that it is now so close is special.”
It was not only cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema who won prizes on Sunday. Director Christopher Nolan and actors Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. also won an Oscar. The film also won prizes for best film, best music and best editing.
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Last month Van Hoytema also won a BAFTA for his camera work
